Patna, February 19: South Korean Jang Kun Lee and Bajirao Hodage gave a sterling display to guide Bengal Warriors to an important win over Telugu Titans in the Season 3 of the Star Sports Pro Kabaddi. This was the first victory for the winners after two losses earlier. The win takes them to 32 points in 27 matches to hold the second place in the table. Telugu Titans have 23 in nine matches and move to fourth place with the solitary point they gained today for a less than seven point defeat.

Jang Kun Lee of Bengal Warriors trying to escape from the hold applied by Dharamaraj Cheralathan and Sukesh Hegde of Telugu Titans

For the Telugu Titans it was yet another disappointing day as their star Rahul Chaudhari was a passenger. He made a sensational start getting rival skipper Nilesh Shinde in the very first raid. His failures thereafter as Bajirao Hodage singled him out for special treatment hurt his side a lot. This resulted in Bajirao scoring eight points and keeping Rahul Chaudhari out for close to half an hour. Matching Bajirao Hodage was rival skipper Dharamaraj Cheralathan with two super tackles and a tally of eight which went in vain.

It was level pegging in the first ten minutes as a mere 10 points were put on the board. Jang Kun Lee and Shrikant Jadhav raided well for the winners and so did Sukesh Hegde for the losing team. Things gradually turned the way of Bengal Warriors after the winners trapped Rahul Chaudhari and Sukesh Hegde in successive raids and then Shrikant Jadhav and Mahesh Goud got raiding points to hasten the first of the two all-outs the Telugu Titans suffered. The first was in the 15th minute and the third in the 38th minute with the score reading 31-25 leaving the winners the simple task of clinging to it.

The 16-12 lead at the break was marginal but the gap widened to 20-14 in just four minutes with Shrikant Jadhav scoring. With Sukesh Hegde stepping out and Rahul Chaudhari falling prey to the merciless Bajirao Hodage the team were in trouble. There came a recovery as Telugu Titans clawed back to reduce the difference to 21-17 and the four point gap was further reduced to 24-22 to set up a tight finish. Bengal Warriors conceded as many three super tackles to Dharamaraj Cheralathan (2) and Meraj Sheykh (1).

Very soon it became 25-24 and both the coaches took time outs to review their strategy. But two good tackles by Bajirao Hodage and two points from Jang Kun Lee took the winners to safety. Rahul Chaudhari’s two points came in but a little too late in the game.